Score ONE Jim!

Admiral Timothy Keating delivered a rousing story at the decommissioning. I was most impressed with my first official admiral. Thennn......




Last year I bought a Cruise book on ebay. It's like a yearbook for a navy ship. It was from the USS Kitty Hawk's 1981 Westpac tour. I forgot about it until yesterday! I looked into it tonight. I thought, what if Admiral Keating was in there, tht would be cool...and look!! Viola!



I managed to win a few other Kitty Hawk things on ebay today, too. One was a challenge coin and another was a postal cover...a postal cover is an envelope that has a stamp cancelled by the ship's post office...well, this was supposed to be among the last ons cancelled by her post office. I am now waiting to obtain patch.

Here are pics of my cruisebook.

Cool, huh? Ebay normlly sells them for bout $200 each...I got mine for considerably less!

Here is Cora and me on our way back from Bremerton aboard the ferry...She is trying NOT to smile and NOT to look at the camera...isn't Cora cute?


In this one, I had assured her it would be complimentary...I think it worked.

Today, I subbed for a kinder class and had a student teacher do the work for me. All in all it was a good day! Then I tried to cut the mats out of the cat and nearly cut the cat off the mat...Still, there wasn't much blood, and I will take him to the vet, so, all is good, right?

A Wonderful Decommissioning, and Museum Ship, Too.

It was a wonderful day!!

You can see how pleased I was! Here, I am looking into the future of Carrier Technology and a time when Kitty will be called to action again!!!

We thoroughly enjoyed the day! It began early, and a good thing it did! We ended up getting there just in time. The ceremony was held on the Hangar deck. Cora was disappointed, as she was looking forward to seeing the 4.5 acres of sorvereign US territory, also called a flight deck. We did get run of the pier and I got some pictures of various other ships there at the Naval Yard. I will post those at my other site, since you readers might not want to see one hundred ship pictures. Should you want to, though, here it is. My parents came, too, and also enjoyed it. My Dad had purchased a very nice Kitty Hawk shirt for me on Thursday, too!

Next we visited the Bremerton Naval Museum. Which was a terrible disappointment! Years ago, it was a wonderful museum full of naval curiosities, from Admiral Dewey's couch to a 15 foot model of the USS Midway! There were mines and torpedoes aplenty. Today, it is run by the US Navy, and it is a piece of shit. There is plenty of room for good exhibits and they have some wonderful cobbles outside surrounding the sail of the USS Parche. They still have the ship's bell of the USS Washington and the USS Bremerton, but little else. It was a wild disappointment. Oh, and nothing mentioned WHY USS Parche was the most decorated submarine EVER! Nothing about secret missions and Cold War intrigue. Nothing. It turns out there is a treasure trove down stairs, but the Navy has only allowed a small amount of that treasure to be viewed by the public. I intend to write a letter to the Navy stating my disappointment that these treasures are not on view, furthering the education of another generation and interest in the navy.

We went to the USS Turner Joy next! THAT was worth the price of admission! Cora and I wer all over the ship and Cora even stood on the bow, declaring her royalty and eminence over the world. I think the exact quote was "I'm king of the world!"

It is a beautifully restored Destroyer! I highly recommend it!!

They had 55 lb projectiles all over the ship. I figured, if you could carry it off the ship it was yours, but Cora told me I could NOT have one... I think she is narrow minded and mean. As it turns out, they were not for you take home...darn it. Would have been perfect on the TV stand.

Shhhhhhhh, Cora could not figure out why I was having troube climbing ladders! No need to tell her of my little souvenir! (Just joking, I'd never do such a thing...although, if anyone has such a paper weight, I am VERY interested in buying![it's an educational item, really!])

Good Bye Kitty!!

We had a wonderful day. We started early, and it was a long, but rewarding day! I will post more later. For some reason Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos, hopefully I can when we get home! I hope everyone is having a similarly good weekend!

Me? Nothing to Say!??

I guess I haven't had alot to say lately. That's strange, I know! I have been subbing at the intermediate and I will again tomorrow.
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I am hoping for a HS job on Friday, as I'd like to leave as early as possible for Seattle. The Kitty Hawk decommissioning is coming. I am afraid our camera battery will die just as we get there. I can't find our spare and I would rather not buy another...still, it would break my heart to miss pictures of the Bremertn Naval Yard, especially since no one seems interested in sending me pictures they have taken of naval or air installations....hmmm, that gives me an idea...
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I am hereby begging you all to go through your files, pictures, and albums and send me some pictures of installations/bases you have been to. I might even post them on my other site if you give me permission!

I challenge you to send me photos of the bases you have been seen. And, since it isn't fair for me to ask to see yours without showing mine...well, here are some of mine:

The allert hangars at ex-McClellan AFB 2005.

McChord AFB, 2008.

Travis AFB 2005.

I took this one at ex-Mare Island Naval Base, these are the building ways. Many ships slid down this ramp!
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I look forward to seeing what you folks have (Eric, Erin, John, and Edna).
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I have been communicating with a fellow aircraft wreck enthusiast, and he said he was sending me an accident report! Maybe this will tie me over until the Air Force Historical Research Agency sends me the ones I requested back in December. I also located a batch of accident reports that I had misplaced. Well, they were actually right in front of me this whole time, but they looked so neat and tidy, I simply assumed they were Cora's work stuff. None of my stuff ever looks neat, so it was totally understandable!
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I managed to download some pictures to our hard drive and erase a card, which will give me a little more than 1000 pictures on a card. Still, it may not be enough. Hence my worry! I think I will take the video camera, too!

Student Teachers Rock.

Today, once again, I got some pay back. You will recall last year I expressed extreme happiness at getting to sub for someone who had a student teacher. Today, once again, I had the same experience. When I was a student teacher, substitutes would come in and read their books while I earned them a day's pay. Today, I was the sub...ahhh, sweet revenge. I actually did something, though. I helped keep the kids at bay!

I liked this ST(student teacher), though. She had...well, class. This is a class where there are actually two teachers who team teach two classes. Therefore there were two subs and one Student Teacher...Guess who did the majority of the teaching! Yep!! The Student Teacher did. Ha Ha Ha! Actually, she seemed more ready for it than I was that first few days. It was a good day. She handled BOTH classes with...well, class.

I made some suggestions about her Social Studies lesson and she decided she would base tomorrow's lesson around them. Hmm, I AM awesome. I think she will go far.

Tonight's dinner was...not quite as good as I expected. I tried to make chicken strips...but, fell short of the chicken. We had canned spinach and an unsuccessful attempt at homemade mashed potatoes...still, we gained sustainence from it...so should we complain? no. Still, at least the spinach was good.

And...the time when I stand on the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk bidding her farewell from the fleet grows near. May she find herself a memorial rather than a reef or, worse, a line of kitchen ware. January 31 beckons.

Christmas Comes Early...and Late.

Check this out!



So, this wonderful little gem arrived and I m SOOO excited! I have never been to a decommissioning! The USS Kitty Hawk will be decommission on January 31, 2009. I expect to be there with my wife and parents in tow.


COLD out. We are getting some snow now and I m smoking some more cheese, I hope it turns out as well as my last batch. Supposed to be winter storm nice out...joy.